Right to Breathe: A Constitutional Path to Environmental Justice & Equity

The constitutions of more than three-quarters of the countries on Earth explicitly reference environmental rights or responsibilities, but that is not the case in the United States. The U.S. Constitution contains no unequivocal right to a clean environment, and attempts to sway federal judges to find an implied right have not been successful. Recently, in Juliana v. United States, plaintiffs pursued an order requiring the federal government to reduce the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. While the Oregon district court ostensibly favored such an order, a divided Ninth Circuit held in 2020 that the plaintiffs lacked standing.